In recent years, a service called on-demand printing has received a great deal of attention in the field of printing services and printing devices such as a digital copying apparatus and printer. On-demand printing is not a conventional service such as printing or bookbinding which assumes a large number of printed materials at a print shop, but a service of providing a small number of simple printed materials or booklets within a short time.
When an original to be processed by on-demand printing contains both color and monochrome pages, the operator divides the original into pages using a color copying (or printer) apparatus and pages using a monochrome copying (or printer) apparatus. After color and monochrome pages are printed, the operator rearranges the printed materials in page order, and binds them off-line by a stapler or the like.
At a copying shop or the like, work is complicated because of requests from a plurality of customers. In order to quickly perform work from designation of an output destination to bookbinding, a high-performance apparatus connected to a plurality of options or many copying apparatuses must be used, or an experienced operator must efficiently distribute pages to apparatuses.
If, however, an experience operator is absent or the user is to print and bind an original containing both color and monochrome pages at an office or the like, the user cannot determine the type and method of color copying apparatus and those of monochrome copying apparatus in order to achieve efficient work, taking a longer time than expected.
Also, an optimal copying apparatus changes depending on the stapling or bookbinding mode or the number of outputs. Even if the copying apparatus has a bookbinding function, the user cannot fully exploit it, and may have to manually bind output results.
An optimal copying apparatus may be automatically selected (for example, a high-performance color copying apparatus (printer) is selected for outputting a color original and a high-speed monochrome copying apparatus (printer) is selected for a monochrome original). Even in this case, if an apparatus arranged apart from the user is selected, an extra process time is taken.
For a large number of pages of a color & monochrome job or a large number of printed-materials (copies), th user must wait till the end of outputting each color or monochrome job near an output copying apparatus.
When different booklets must be parallel-printed at a copying shop or the like, the process order must be recorded on paper. The occurrence of a plurality of work processes makes the booklet work procedures cumbersome.
Bookbinding of one booklet via various divisional processes in the presence of different paper sheets in one job, the coexistence of color and monochrome originals, or both cover printing and bookbinding requires printers, copying apparatuses, collators, and bookbinding apparatuses. It is very difficult for an operator other than an experienced operator to process bookbinding by using these apparatuses simultaneously. As a result, the operator must perform steps one by one inefficiently for a long process time.
When one job is processed using a plurality of printers, the operator may fail to pick up a page processed by a given printer and omit it.
A shortage of an expandable such as toner or sheets immediately after the start of output leads to wasteful work such as re-setting or replenishment of the expandable or the like.
In this manner, an output destination is conventionally selected from a plurality of candidates depending on the subjectivity or knowledge of the user who executes printing. The efficiency varies depending on the user, and no mechanism which supports complicated work exists. Under the circumstance, an output destination determination system which automatically determines an output destination by selecting the printing cost per output sheet, the output time, positional information of the printer, or the like is recently examined.
For example, to output a file containing both color and monochrome pages with cost priority, it is preferable to output color pages by a color printer and monochrome pages by a monochrome printer. However, a conventional output destination determination system cannot realize such distribution even if cost priority is designated.
For the user, the efficiency will be further increased by a system which automatically searches for one or a plurality of output destinations under a plurality of conditions. However, such technique has not been available yet.
In the presence of a plurality of candidates as a result of search, if the user can select an output from the candidates, the user operability will improve.
The present invention has been made to overcome the conventional drawbacks: and has as its object to provide a printing control apparatus and printing control method capable of allowing even an inexperienced operator to efficiently perform a desired printing process by using proper printing devices.
It is more preferable to be able to automatically detect a proper printing device on the basis of the final output form desired by the user and output file information.